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The first part of the book deals in a more descriptive manner in what is the puer aeternis archetype and how the puer presents himself to the world and himself. Next, parallels with The Little Prince are made to the puer and a connection to Saint-Exupery being a puer himself - mother complex, addicted to flying, driven and creative only when the mood struck. After this there are more parallels of the puer made with the book The Kingdom Without Space; this book sounds very interesting, but the connections between it and the puer are more difficult (but not impossible) to see without the more detailed reasoning given in much of the earlier chapters dealing with The Little Prince. I really enjoyed the first, more concrete, part of the book where the mannerisms and reasoning why someone might follow the puer aeternis path. The latter half of the book was interesting, but also long winded and more of a book review where Jung's psychology was projected (or interpreted) into the two books.

While the actual combat advice is likely outdated, if for no other reason than modern guns usurping swords, many of the positions advocated for can be reapplied to other areas of life. The ground ring teaches that you should build your life on a solid foundation made up of focus, practice, intent, and lacking distractions. The water ring teaches that you should be fluid in your life, adjusting yourself to your environment, but still remain strong as even the slowest trickle of water can still carve out the deepest canyon. The fire ring is the least useful in modern context since it is heavily focused on actual combat, but you might draw inspiration to maintain your focus and practice in a diligent manner. The wind ring teaches that you should not be set in your ways and that you can always learn from alternate methods - know thy enemy - while the void ring reminds you that the way (learning, living) is not the means but the end.

Peterson uses meandering stories and exceedingly disconnected examples to make cases for his rules. He doesn't hide his literary slant and it feels like he is writing to show off his vocabulary and force his voice through the pages. That said, the rules are reasonable and would almost certainly provide a good starting point for anyone, but particularly young men, that might feel unmoored in today's social and political world. On one hand he makes a lot of calls back to biblical references, which in my bias opinion is a good foundation for rules for life, but on the other he regularly uses the trope of 'Hitler bad' (to his credit he also points out Lenin, Stalin, and Mao as well) which feels exceedingly weak in modern arguments. Overall I would say that while you might find the book useful it is quite a slog to get through if you are looking to get right to the point, but that might be a benefit to others that want to take their time and read some subjectively interesting stories while slowly absorbing the 12 rules.

There isn't anything groundbreaking here and is little more than a way to focus on quarterly progress (their 12 week 'years') instead of annual progress. While nothing new, the system is good for keeping on track since you can reasonably plan 12 weeks whereas trying to plan 52 would be all but impossible. By having weekly and quarterly feedback of the (sub) goals you are striving to accomplish you get more and faster feedback. The authors make use of, but not as strictly, the time boxing or time blocking system I read about in Indistractable. Overall I think the 12 week year concept is little more than a gimmick, but the idea of shorter 'goal periods' that can produce feedback and be easier to forecast are solid strategies for accomplishing your goals.

The idea of timeboxing sounds very appealing to me and though I have tried to use it several times (and am trying again now), I always end up back in my basic monthly tasks I keep in a spreadsheet. Beyond timeboxing, the book has a lot of useful tips on identifying and understanding internal and external triggers that evoke some kind of emotion in you that ultimately leads to you getting distracted. Once you have a decent grasp of what your triggers are - and how you are likely avoiding pain instead of chasing pleasure - you can start to restructure your life to block out certain things at certain times. There is a lot of talk about technology and the author makes a solid case that it isn't the tech that is distracting us, it is the content delivered by said tech (and this has existed for generations - tv, radio, and even books were once blamed as distractions). Towards the end it feels a little repetitive, but in this part the author shows that the techniques learned can be reapplied to children in a bid to give them more agency, more motivation, and less distraction in their lives as well.